TROPICAL CYCLONE PROGRAMME

Report No. TCP-41

N O T E
The designations employed and the presentation of material in this document do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of the Secretariat of the World Meteorological Organization concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city or area or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries.

INTRODUCTIONThe twelfth WMO Congress (May/June 1995) endorsed the implementation of a project entitled “Tropical Cyclone-related NWP Products and their Guidance” under the Tropical Cyclone Programme (TCP Sub-Project No. 18) within the framework of the Fourth WMO Long-term Plan (4LTP) (1996-2005). The objectives of the project were to determine the type of NWP products required to support the operations of tropical cyclone forecast offices, to serve as an essential reference for all operational tropical cyclone forecasters on the availability and use of NWP products and provide a link with other organizations which have an interest in various aspects of NWP.
The project was first proposed by the first TC RSMC Technical Coordination Meeting (Tokyo, December 1992) and was then elaborated at a TCP expert meeting in Mexico in December 1993.
In August 1995, the Secretary-General of WMO invited all Permanent Representatives of countries running NWP models for tropical cyclone forecasting to participate in the project through the provision of appropriate material.
This publication is the first update of the guide which was published in 1999 with Mr Alan Radford (UK) as Chief Editor and with contributions from six other highly qualified NWP specialists from six countries (Australia, France, India, Japan, UK and USA). This edition of the guide incorporates the contributions from three more WMO Members namely China; Hong Kong, China and Republic of Korea. It is hoped that other Members will also contribute to future updates.
The electronic version of this guide is also available at:
http://www.wmo.ch/web/www/TCP/TDs/TD9662002ed.doc2002 edition

CHAPTER 1

General summary of NWP models used to provide

tropical cyclone guidance

1.1 IntroductionThe rapid increase in computer power in recent years has enabled numerical models to attain resolutions where small-scale systems such as tropical cyclones are resolved. These models are displaying real skill with motion prediction, and have the potential to handle formation. However, only a limited number of models (Kurihara et al., 1995, for example), have attained resolutions where cyclone structure (including intensity) can be addressed.
Current research models and research programs indicate that numerical model forecasts of tropical cyclones will continue to improve. Improvements will also come from the ability to resolve fine-scale structure as computing power and memory continue to increase and become less expensive.
In order to understand how to use tropical cyclone-related NWP products it is important that forecasters have an appreciation of the manner in which numerical models are constructed, their basic physics, and the constraints under which they operate. This chapter therefore gives a brief overview of numerical models and their features, including methods of bogussing tropical cyclones.
Numerical models use a subset of the full fluid dynamics and thermodynamics equations describing the atmosphere. Subsets that are used for tropical cyclone track prediction include barotropic, non-divergent, shallow-water equations, truncated baroclinic and full primitive-equation models. The essential elements of these systems are:

a grid of points at which atmospheric parameters are held (grid-point model), or a series of polynomials or spectral functions that approximate the atmospheric fields (spectral models);

one or more distinct layers or levels in the vertical;

an analysis/assimilation cycle to obtain the initial fields;

a method for integrating the model equations forward in time;

some form of physical parameterization to incorporate the effects of systems smaller than can be resolved by the grid or spectral wave numbers being used;

a means of handling forcing from the model boundaries.

In addition, most systems now include a means of bogussing observations to provide additional information in data-sparse regions.

Full details of these processes are beyond the scope of this publication and may be found in standard texts, such as Haltimer and Williams (1979). Here we provide some of the essentials and requirements for such processes.
1.2 Model GridsAll operational models, including spectral models, start with atmospheric fields on a regular grid array, on which the required atmospheric parameters are held. Model grids can have any shape; they do not need to be regular, or square. The grid may be distorted to provide higher resolution in a specified region or near a system of interest (e.g. ARPEGE, section 2.3.1). Alternatively, higher resolution grids may be successively nested within each other to provide a telescope effect with a high-resolution focus on the region of interest (e.g. GFDL, section 2.7.3). The grid also may be regular, with all data held at common grid-points, or it may be staggered, with data split between two overlapping grids.
1.3 Model Vertical StructureThe vertical layers, or layers, are defined by using some form of vertical co-ordinate. In the early days of modelling, the simple pressure co-ordinate was widely used. This then tended to give way to the ‘sigma’ co-ordinate, which has the advantage of adjusting the variable orography into a ‘flat’ surface with a value equal to zero. Nowadays, many NWP centres use a hybrid combination of the pressure and sigma co-ordinate systems, providing the benefits of a terrain-following system in the lower atmosphere with a pure pressure co-ordinate higher up.
It is normal to vary the vertical resolution considerably, especially to provide high resolution in the atmospheric boundary layer and in the upper-level outflow region, where sharp vertical gradients occur.
1.4 Analysis, Assimilation and Bogus ObservationsAnalysis and assimilation consists of taking all available data and converting them to a form suitable for model integration. The data are obtained from a variety of sources and instruments, including direct temperature, moisture and wind from radiosondes, remotely sensed temperature derived from satellite sounding instruments, winds from satellite cloud drift calculations, direct radiances, etc. Observations with high consistency and low error characteristics need to be given priority over concomitant observations of lower quality. Typically, all of these observations are then combined together with a ‘background’ or ‘first-guess’ field into an initial analysis.
In regions of poor data coverage, it is often useful to include ‘bogus’ observations derived from human interpretation or empirical relationships to provide an indication of major weather patterns that would otherwise go unobserved. Of particular interest here is the process of tropical cyclone vortex bogussing.
Since most tropical cyclones have very few observations in the vicinity, they often go undetected by standard analyses or are analyzed very poorly, with centres ill-defined and in the wrong location. Such initial errors obviously have a major impact on the forecast of cyclone tracks and many attempts have been made to provide bogus vortices to approximate the cyclone. These attempts are helped by observations and theory (Elsberry, 1987) that the motion of tropical cyclones is not overly sensitive to details of the inner structure. Care must be taken, however, with the cyclone size and outer structure and with careful specification of the near environmental flow.
Most operational centres use some form of tropical cyclone bogus. These all utilize estimated location and intensity of cyclones from a variety of sources, together with current structural knowledge of tropical cyclones and any other available observations to generate mass and wind data representative of the system to be bogussed. Chapter 2 describes the methods in use at the various NWP centres.
Inserting the chosen bogus cyclone into the analysis is a difficult task. Typically , two less than optimal methods are used. In the first, the cyclone is smoothly added to the original analysis. In the second, the bogus cyclone circulation is used to generate a set of observations that are inserted into the analysis cycle.
Both methods have shortcomings. The bogus vortex addition can introduce significant shocks to the system in the early model integration, which can degrade the subsequent model forecast. In the second method, the bogus data (and any conventional data around the storm) can be rejected by the objective analysis scheme. The rejection occurs because of unacceptable differences from the first guess used by the analysis. This can be somewhat alleviated by use of more appropriate structure functions and error limits in the cyclone vicinity.
1.5 Physical ParameterizationAll numerical models operate on a finite grid, or with a finite number of waves to describe the spectral signature. As a result, they cannot adequately resolve small-scale features, such as cumulus convection, or the interchange of energy between the surface and the ocean. Those “sub-grid-scale” processes that have an important impact on the forecasts are included by parameterising their effects on the larger scale.
As an example, let us consider cumulus convection. This is known to be related to the large-scale convergence in the lower troposphere and the degree of convective instability. One type of scheme, called convective adjustment, “adjusts” the atmosphere back to a defined lapse rate whenever convective instability of a prescribed amount develops. Alternative schemes depend on both a conditionally unstable atmosphere and local convergence. Once such conditions are satisfied, convection is assumed to occur and a parameterisation scheme is invoked. Such schemes can be relatively simple and based on a defined vertical heating profile with magnitude specified by the degree of moisture convergence (e.g. Kuo, 1974). Or they can be very complex and based on equilibrium conditions between a population of cloud types (Arakawa and Schubert, 1974). In all cases, the aim is to proved the model with an indication of changes required as a result of the unresolved convective activity.
The choice of convective parameterization scheme can greatly affect the quality of tropical cyclone forecasts.
1.6 Boundary ConditionsA very important consideration for limited area numerical forecasts is the quality of the boundary conditions (e.g. Errico and Baumhefner, 1987). This is because atmospheric waves and disturbances generated at the boundary can rapidly propagate throughout the domain and swamp the model forecast cycle. Two types of boundary therefore need to be carefully handled: the real boundaries at the earth’s surface and top of the atmosphere; and the pseudo horizontal boundaries required because of capacity limitations with computers used for operational forecasting. At the earth’s surface, models often have many layers close together to help provide the best simulation of such surface effects as local orography and sea-surface temperature. For a region of several thousand kilometers per side, the model solution will tend to be swamped by the horizontal boundary conditions after 2-3 days. For this reason, regional forecast models are always nested into global forecast systems.

CHAPTER 2

Details of operational NWP models used to provide tropical cyclone guidance and products2.1 IntroductionThe purpose of this chapter is to provide details of the characteristics of those operational NWP models currently used to provide tropical cyclone (TC) guidance and products. Each sub-section contains details of those models run by a particular Meteorological Service. In some cases more than one model is in operational use.
For each model, the following sub-sections are included:
a) Data AssimilationDetails of the data assimilation and analysis systems used for the model.
b) Initialization of TC’sDetails of how tropical cyclones are initialized in the model including any bogus methods.
c) Forecast ModelDetails of the forecast model, e.g. resolution, dynamics.
d) Physical ParameterisationsDetails of the physical parameterization schemes used in the model.
e) Operational ScheduleThe frequency at which the model is run operationally and the forecast range.
f) Forecasts of TC Track, Structure & IntensitySpecific forecasts produced by the model relating to the track, structure and intensity of tropical cyclones. These may only be available to internal users of the model.
g) TC Guidance ProductsTropical cyclone guidance products generally available to outside users.
A summary of all models is given in Table 1.